凯瑟地域小说中的火车与现代性想象

在凯瑟的地域书写中,火车作为自由和进步的象征,意指解放和新生的力量,促进了城乡互动,推动了乡土现代化的进程。同时,火车作为工业主义的标识,象征资本空间的扩张,摧毁了前现代田园理想,反映出现代性的毁灭性力量。最后,作为集结解放和桎梏力量的"第三空间",火车彰显现代性的悖论:一方面,它赋予乡村人以流动性,孕育了适应现代社会的主体,建构了美国民族的进步叙事;另一方面,它是施展性别政治和压抑人的主体性的空间,解构了现代性话语张榜进步和自由的理念。在凯瑟笔下,火车是一个矛盾的存在体,构成作家审视现代性利弊的视点,反映了现代性的内在张力。

In Cather's regional writing,trains,as a symbol of freedom and progress,signify the power of liberation and rebirth that boosts the interactions between the country and the city and promotes the process of rural modernization.Meanwhile,as an indicator of industrialism,trains,signifying the expansion of capital space,smash the pre-modern pastoralism and demonstrate the devastating power of modernity.Lastly,as a“third space”encompassing the power of liberation and restriction,trains reflect the paradox of modernity.On the one hand,they endow the country folk with mobility,nurture the subjects'fit for modern society and construct the narrative of America's progress.On the other hand,they become a space where the display of gender politics and the repression of human subjectivity occur and deconstruct such concepts as progress and freedom upheld by the discourse of modernity.Under Cather's pen,trains,as a paradoxical entity,become a perspective from which the author examines the merits and demerits of modernity and reflects its internal tension.